The Census and Poverty Data

I'm still going to add more to my notebook, but I felt this was interesting enough to merit a separate entry.

Yesterday's Census release contained oodles of stats related to income and poverty. And every time new poverty numbers come out, the critics are sure to follow.

And for good reason. Not only is the system for measuring poverty antiquated, but it's a federal system that applies national income thresholds to New Jersey. In other words, even though the cost of living here is among the highest in the nation, the Census decides whether somebody in New Jersey is in poverty using the same income criteria as somebody in Mississippi.

This year, a four-person household is considered above the poverty level if it makes over $20,650-nowhere near enough for a household to support itself in New Jersey.

So I did a little experiment. This chart lists the poverty rate for the U.S. and every New Jersey geography in yesterday's release, but broken down by gradation. The first column is percent of people whose economic status is 50 percent below their federal poverty threshold, or worse.

The numbers are cumulative -- so by the time you get to the third column, below 1, you have the official poverty rate.

But what if you argued that New Jersey's cost of living is about 50 percent higher than the federal standard? In that case, you could look two columns over and get a truer poverty rate. Of course, you can debate how far to the right you could move the line -- but these numbers provide something to talk about.

When considering the official poverty rates it's important to
recognize that many more people across the state are in true poverty, with incomes well below what it costs to meet all expenses for basic needs such as housing, child care and health care. To meet New Jersey's high cost of living, the majority of households in the state would need incomes more than double the standard federal poverty rate to truly remain out of poverty.